Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/95

 there was much thrilled with a delicious, painful curiosity. She had written a letter of sympathy to Sir Ian Hereward. Now she would soon see how he bore his trouble.

Miss Ricardo did not shudder; but she, too, was very pale and there were dark circles round the hazel eyes which had made Richard the footman disloyal to Miss Verney's beauty. Terry knew no more than Maud knew, of what an inquest would be like, and she feared everything, but her face and manner were as composed as if she had come to hear a lecture. As they were admitted into the library, her eyes travelled round the room, searching for Sir Ian and Miss Verney, but neither was there. She had been foolish, Terry told herself, to think that she might see them. They were both mourners; the husband and the trusted girl-companion of the murdered woman. Doubtless they would be spared as much as possible, and would only be called in when the time came for them to speak.

Terry had not seen the library before, but she knew that its grim aspect of to-day was not its aspect of other days. In itself, it was a pleasant room, lined with old books and new, the top shelf displaying rare pottery, and a few marble busts that stood out against the dark oak wall. There were many, many books and the two mullioned windows, with their quaintly fashioned crests on panes of painted glass, looked out on